Painting With My Dead Friend

Holly, a dear friend of mine, died last summer. She was a writer and a creative soul in many ways, including artmaking of all kinds. She was an imaginative free spirit who appreciated the unconventional. So her art was usually quirky. Self-taught, she didn’t often...

Respite from the Mind

I’ve just returned home from several enchanted days on Lake Superior. My greedy mind — muted for awhile by movement, story, song, beauty, affection, and silence — now wants to read mail, catch up on national news, make necessary appointments, resume tasks set...

A Tall Order

It’s amazing what you can get on Amazon. Recently, when I was in Lanesboro Minnesota visiting my friend, I learned that the nearby town of Peterson, population 200, had taken up a collection and ordered an 8 ½-foot gnome to honor their Norwegian heritage (and for fun...

Liberating Limericks

A writer whose mind swam in fog, Was endlessly scribbling her blog. Ideas were few, And nothing felt new, So she quit, and went out for some grog.   She tried once again the next morn, But still nothing real could be born. Words wouldn’t come, Her brain stuck...

Don’t Bore the Gods!

I had a humbling Aha! moment the other day. Humbling but also freeing. Tom and I have been reading a series of young adult novels, The Lost Years of Merlin. The five book series, which imagine Merlin from about age 9 to adulthood, are fun, full of enchanted forests,...

What Now?

How can we best navigate this difficult time in our country and the world? Yesterday, with that question in mind, I grabbed an old magazine, took a deep breath, and spoke this question aloud. Then I opened the magazine at random and ripped out the page under my hand....